Image: The Queen Sonja Art Stable, Lismore
Lismore Castle Arts is launching the 2026 edition of its ‘A Space for Lismore’ project exhibition by Debbie Godsell, with the show opening on 22 August at St Carthage Hall in Lismore, Co. Waterford, and remaining on view until 20 September 2026. The exhibition follows a year-long collaborative project in which Godsell worked with a group of women from Lismore through workshops facilitated with Lismore Castle Arts’ Learning Team and based in the institution’s new print studio.
The project is part of an annual format in which Lismore Castle Arts invites an artist to work alongside a local community over an extended period. In this case, Godsell and the participating women explored printmaking processes including screen printing, lino printing, drypoint, monoprint and cyanotype. According to the venue, the workshops drew on the histories and lived experiences of women in the town and focused on themes of identity, belonging, memory and place.
The resulting exhibition presents a series of soft-sculptural self-portraits made by the participating women. Lismore Castle Arts says the works were constructed from repurposed vintage textiles and incorporate personal materials and embellishments, combining individual stories with shared histories. The project is presented as a reflection on self-representation through contemporary printmaking, with the final artworks moving beyond the workshop setting into a public exhibition space.
An exhibition preview is scheduled for Saturday, 22 August, from 3pm to 5pm. The preview begins at St Carthage Hall, Chapel St, Lismore, at 3pm, followed by a walk departing at 4pm to the Print Studio at Lismore Castle Arts, where visitors will see additional artworks made during the project and learn more about the exhibition’s inspirations. Admission is free.
The exhibition will be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm to 5pm between 22 August and 20 September 2026. The venue information lists St Carthage Hall, Chapel St, Lismore, P51 WV96, as the location for the exhibition.
Godsell’s practice is described by Lismore Castle Arts as primarily lens-based, later extending into two-dimensional works, sculptural forms and video. The venue also notes that her work is collected by the National Gallery of Ireland, the OPW and the Crawford Art Gallery as part of the National Collection, and that she has received a series of Arts Council and Cork County Arts bursaries and residency awards. For this project, however, the emphasis is on the collaborative process and the works created by the women who took part in workshops throughout the year.
